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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Carbon-Market Millionaires Take a Hit
2008-04-16
Oxford, England — Marc Stuart and Pedro Moura Costa have become multimillionaires in a booming new market designed to fight global warming.
I thought Algore said that this market was to be 'Al'truistic?
Now, their empire is under attack. Their firm, United Kingdom-based EcoSecurities Ltd., helps companies in the industrialized world meet their obligations to pollute less by selling them “credits” that fund clean-air projects in poorer nations. Last year, some $9.4 billion in these credits were traded, up from almost none four years earlier.

The marketÂ’s anything-goes early days appear to be ending. United Nations officials who regulate the trade started questioning scores of proposed projects, from hydroelectric plants in China to wind farms in India. The issue: whether they provide real environmental gains, or are just padding the pockets of middlemen like EcoSecurities.
Not typical of Turtle Bay. UN reacting to some other influence?
Posted by:Mullah Richard

#5  Related smoke and mirrors story: A friend of Mrs RET does taxes for people and recently had a client who claimed $68k in selling virtual money to gamers so they could upgrade their weapons and'stuff.'
wunnerful world we live in.....
Posted by: USN,Ret.   2008-04-16 14:47  

#4  They know it's all Bullshit, but it's lucrative Bullshit, so they have to be at the trough, while apearing to condemn it.

UN SOP
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2008-04-16 13:36  

#3  If the carbon credit folks were truly intending to help the environment they'd be buying up massive swaths of land (Arctic, jungle, whatever) to help protect it.

If the UN was serious they'd give some kind of credits to nations that created national parks in "vital" areas as well.

If the UN was serious they'd go almost entirely virtual and stop the jet-setting.

Nobody is serious.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2008-04-16 12:05  

#2  And you thought the dot coms were blue smoke?
Posted by: tu3031   2008-04-16 10:21  

#1  Sounds like another pig wants its turn at the trough.

Each credit is essentially a permission slip to emit one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Currently these credits sell for $16 to $24 apiece.

Powder River Basin coal sells for $14/ton on the spot market (less under contract). One ton of it burns to produce 1.8 tons of CO2. Under this scheme (and it is a lucrative scheme, a 1000MW power plant will burn 20,000 tons or more/day) $14 coal magically becomes $43-$57 coal. The price of electricity is doubled and the parasitic class has sunk another hook into the economic artery.
Posted by: ed   2008-04-16 10:16  

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